Sermons And Gubbins

 This sermon was preached on our Sunday morning service on 8th September. The gospel was Mark 7:24-37 . I hope you enjoy reading it! The Jesus of the first half of today’s Gospel is – I have to say – a Jesus I don’t really recognise. I don’t know if you feel the same? It starts off normal enough; in our gospel, we hear that Jesus leaves his own community and sets off travelling. Maybe he’s visiting extended family, or perhaps he’s on a tour, spreading the Good News to other members of the Jewish faith (or, potentially more apposite to today’s Gospel, the Jewish race ). Either way, he’s in foreign climes. Whilst there, he finds a place to stay. He’s approached by a local woman who asks for his help. Not for her, but for her daughter, who, she says, is possessed. And here’s where Jesus looks to go off the rails. He says ‘no’.   Jesus and the Syrophoenician Woman     He says ‘no’, and really not politely. He’s rude to her. His language is discriminatory...

This sermon was given at our Sunday morning service on 19th February 2023, the last Sunday before Lent. I hope you enjoy reading it, and don't find the puns (too!) cringe-worthy! The gospel reading was Matthew 17:1-9 . The astute amongst you may well have spotted a theme running through our readings today.   All of our readings, from the Old Testament, to our Gospel and the other New Testament reading from 2 Peter mentioned one thing. If we had read out today’s psalm as well, we’d have heard that that theme in the psalm too. That theme is ‘mountains’. And mountains have certainly given me ‘ summit’ to think about in preparing my sermon today.   Oh – sorry, were you not ‘ inclined’ to find that joke funny? I thought it was the ‘ peak’ of humour, myself but maybe you’re just not appreciating how hill- arious I actually am? I guess I’d better leave the mountain jokes here, and ‘ ev-a-rest ’.   I’m so sorry. Feel free to come at me after the service today with ...

This sermon was first preached at our Sunday morning service on 7th November 2021. The Old Testament reading was  Jonah 3:1-5,10 . Our readings today are odd readings to have at this time of year. In fact, for those of you whose memories are particularly good, you may well recognise them from back at the end of January. Of course, due to covid, back in January, we were only holding services by Zoom, so only read the Gospel lesson on that particular Sunday. I’m not entirely sure why we’ve got them again today; the lectionary is a strange beast sometimes! But actually, I’m delighted that this morning we had a chance to hear these readings again – mainly for the opportunity that we did not get in January to hear from the book of Jonah for our lesson from the Old Testament this morning. I love the book of Jonah. We all know it of course from Sunday school, with the famous story of Jonah being swallowed by a whale; but there is more to the story. If you’ve never read it, I recommend it....

This sermon was preached at our Sunday morning service on 29th August 2021. The Gospel was  Mark 7:1-8,14-15,21-23   Hope you enjoy reading it! “There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile”. What an odd Gospel to hear in these days of Coronavirus, whilst we sit here in our masks, trying so diligently to contain the spread of this disease that we heard only  earlier this week had returned into the top ten causes of death in England in July  (that’s an odd top ten to hear about, by the way. I wonder if they announce the countdown to number one over the music for Pick of the Pops?). Also in our Gospel, Mark calls out that the religious authorities had noticed – and taken afront at the fact that – Jesus’ disciples were eating without first washing their hands. I think I’m with the religious authorities here; I don’t know about you? I’m sure the hands of the UK have never been as clean as they have been over the past two years. I mean, for me, the song ‘...